How did Steve Nash sum up his injury problems from last season? "Bad luck as much as anything ..."

"Last year I think was bad luck as much as anything," Nash told ESPNLosAngeles.com on Friday in a sit-down interview. "To miss seven weeks with a weird contact injury and then practice for a half an hour twice and play the rest of the season? I think that was the root of a lot of my problems at the end of the year. I was just trying to catch on the whole time and hold on. Usually you have a camp and you ease in to something. Even an injury, a lot of times you practice for a week, that kind of thing. I practiced for a half hour twice and played the whole rest of the year."

Steve Nash said he "couldn't sprint" late in the season last year because of his hip injury and nerve issues ...

"Even before the epidurals, I couldn’t sprint but I felt like I could be effective in some way and help the team because we were so undermanned," Nash told ESPNLosAngeles.com in a sit-down interview on Friday.

Nash received three epidural injections from the time the regular season ended through the first two games of the playoffs before ending his season prematurely.

"I feel like I was more so (helpful) than if I didn’t play. I think it gave us another body, even though I was limping around. I just was like, ‘Let’s try and see if I can help a little bit because there’s a long summer after this.’"

Nash tried to play through the hip injury during a game in Milwaukee with nine games left in the regular season and Mike D'Antoni pulled him, saying he "didn't have the heart" to let his point guard toil out there through the pain.

"I don’t think (D'Antoni) knew where this injury was going, but I think he knew, ‘We got to stop now and try to get you better, whether it’s two days or two weeks,’" Nash said. "We just didn’t realize at the time it was kind of nasty with the nerve thing. It was … I mean, what a year? On all fronts."

How can the Lakers get off on the right track this yr? Steve Nash: "I got to play well. Pau’s got to play well..."

"I got to play well. Pau’s got to play well," Nash told ESPNLosAngeles.com in a sit-down interview Friday. "We got to play well, have a good year and we got to find a chemistry. Chemistry has got to be a real strong suit for us. We got to find a real rhythm together."

Nash said that the team has already made strides in the right direction with getting the team together for informal workouts leading up to training camp.

"The biggest, most important thing is for guys to be in shape and to play together and just kind to get to know each other a little bit," Nash said. "That, to me, has been key because, again, we’re putting a whole bunch of new guys together like we did last year and last year was such a disruption with the coaching change and trying to implement a whole new kind of intricate offense, this is nice to get a little head start and get guys familiar with what Mike (D'Antoni) wants to do on one hand, but also with how each other operate a little bit. I know that’s invaluable and even if it doesn’t really seem to amount to much, it’s something."

Nash also supported D'Antoni and predicted a bounce back year for the coach as well.

"Mike’s had a tough go of it – New York and here – but he’s a great guy and he’s got a great basketball mind. I think he’s really competitive and you put him in a situation like this, I think he’ll succeed. He’ll figure out a way to outdo the expectations and outweigh the naysayers."

Steve Nash recently received a memo from the NBA that served as both an honor and a reminder of the challenge he'll face as starting point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers: Nash, who will turn 40 in February, is officially the oldest player on a league roster as the 2013-14 season opens.

While the two-time MVP and eight-time All-Star isn't about to succumb to Father Time just yet as he prepares for his 18th season, his team is planning on cutting back his playing time to save him for the long haul.

According to Nash, Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni is considering adopting a model similar to how San Antonio's Gregg Popovich manages Tim Duncan by giving him games off to rest throughout the season even when healthy.

"Mike mentioned it to me," Nash told ESPNLosAngeles.com on Friday during a sit-down interview on the eve of the first day of Lakers training camp. "I'm open to it. Obviously I'm not the type of guy that's going to look at the schedule and see which games I can miss -- that's never occurred to me -- but if there's a way that we can make the season better by missing a game here and there, I'm open to it."

The Lakers play 19 sets of back-to-back games this season, including four in March, when the dog days of the season can wear on players' bodies. D'Antoni told Nash that those could be opportunities to give him a night off.

Very good interview and I like the idea of resting him on back to backs and I like that he's open to it but at the same time if you read on he wants to see how much he CAN do before they cut his minutes down. Hope ya'll enjoy!